This invention relates generally to a staging apparatus which is used in a sheet-feeding environment and in particular, it relates to a pinch toggle mechanism in the staging apparatus which increases the throughput of sheets through the environment.
In certain sheet-feeding environments such as encoding terminals, for example, the associated sheets or documents such as checks, deposit slips, and the like are fed from a hopper to a track where transport means associated with the track are used to move the documents to an encoder or printing device which prints or encodes certain data on the documents. Between the hopper and the encoder, there is located a staging area at which the documents are momentarily stopped in preparation for feeding them to the encoder in the example being described. One document is held in a "ready" state at the staging area while the preceding document at the encoder is printed upon. When the printing is completed at the encoder, the document located thereat is moved out of the encoder to enable the encoder to accept the document held in the "ready" position at the staging area. The document at the staging area is then moved by the transport means to the encoder to repeat the process.
In prior-art, sheet-feeding environments which employed a staging area, the mechanism which stopped the document thereat generally included a finger-type blade which was moved into the track in the path of an oncoming document to stop it by having its leading edge abut thereagainst. The transport means associated with the track generally included what is termed a low-friction or a "soft drive" which included a driving roller and an associated pinch roller which continued to rotate and "slip" somewhat while the document was stopped at the staging area by the blade mentioned. When the document at the staging area was to be released, it was necessary to withdraw the blade out of the track. Because of the "soft drive" effected by the drive roller and its associated pinch roller, they were slower in their ability to bring the document up to normal track speed from the "at rest" position at the staging area when compared to high friction rollers. Naturally, high friction rollers might tend to damage a document held stationary at the staging area by the blade mentioned due to their "scrubbing" action.